Foot Guards - British Army

British Army

The Foot Guards are the Regular Infantry regiments of the Household Division of the British Army. There have been six active regiments of foot guards and one reserve regiment, five of which still exist. The Royal Guards Reserve Regiment was a reserve formation of the Household Brigade in existence from 1900-1901. The Machine Gun Guards, which was formed during the First World War, was disbanded in 1920:

• Grenadier Guards
• Coldstream Guards
• Scots Guards
• Irish Guards
• Welsh Guards
• Guards Machine Gun Regiment ("Machine Gun Guards")
• Royal Guards Reserve Regiment

While these regiments have other distinguishing features, a simple method of distinguishing members of the different Guards units by their appearance is by the spacing of buttons on the tunic. The ascending number of buttons also indicates the order in which the regiments were formed, although the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards, an ancestor of the Grenadier Guards, is younger than the regiment that now takes the name of the Coldstream Guards; the oldest continuously-serving regiment in the regular British Army (there are older regiments in the Territorial Army). There are various other distinguishing features of the uniforms of the regiments, such as the colour of the plume, which side it is worn on the bearskin, the collar badge and the shoulder badge. When all five regiments parade together, they are in the order of Grenadier Guards on the right flank, then Scots Guards, Welsh Guards, Irish Guards and Coldstream Guards on the left flank. This is because although the Coldstream are ranked second in seniority, their motto is 'Nulli Secundus' ('Second to None').

The five regiments of Foot Guards, lined up as they parade